Abstract
Rural regions are a typology of region rooted around the world. Its identity and matrix are differentiated from the most urbanized regions. Associated with rural areas is a strong negative feeling of depopulation, undeveloped business fabric, less wealth and less ability to attract investment and where public and private services from various sectors of activity are not concentrated. This reality cannot be socially accepted and must be fought for greater equity within countries. To leverage this change, rural regions will have to become co-competitive and attractive regions. In order for this transformation to take place, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a major role. This article characterizes the rural regions in their demographic and economic dimensions, emphasizing the case of the Northeast region of Portugal. Analyse and review a set of fundamental vectors where ICT can be a key driver and enabler for smart rural regions to be created. Finally, it is presented a conceptual model of what can be a smart rural region. © 2020, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
Technological evolution has led to the emergence of a set of solutions suitable to support mobility and ubiquity scenarios. Wireless computing and mobile devices together with the miniaturization of sensors and actuators, which are now embedded in physical spaces, are today's reality. This phenomenon opened the door to a set of opportunities for reengineering how we perceive a given fact or situation and how we act on it. With regard to the delivery of information to users of a given physical space, there is now the possibility of radically transforming the mechanisms of interaction between the space and the user, redesigning the entire experience of interaction. This change allows the user to see the physical space around him adapt to himself and provide him with contextualized and personalized information according to his profile of interest. This approach can improve the way we manage customer relationships in a given business context. This article presents an overview of the state of the art of intelligent spaces and analyzes the potential of indoor positioning systems and techniques, and proposes a conceptual model for the detection of users in physical spaces and the consequent adaptation of an intelligent physical space to provide information aligned with the user's interest profile and in accordance with their privacy rules.

Abstract
Communication between the different actors present in the school ecosystem is an essential issue. However, in a busy world where parents do not have much time to visit schools regularly, it is crucial to create mechanisms to better monitor student success and school demands. The current pandemic situation caused by the coronavirus has highlighted the role that technologies have in supporting the mission of schools and communication between the various school actors. The interaction between school, students and parents presents a growing and complex challenge. Technology has, in recent years, shaped the concepts of support and monitoring of learning - at school and outside it - as well as the way in which information flows between all actors in the school ecosystem. Emergently, the evolution of mobile applications, combined with the evolution of the capabilities of mobile devices, has enabled the creation of new and more effective intercommunication mechanisms, with ubiquitous approaches and in a predictable scenario of less willingness for physical interaction of the different actors. Based on these premises, this article reflects on the potential of mobile devices and their applications to support new models of intercommunication between parents or school sponsors, students and teachers. In this sense, a conceptual model is proposed that represents a work in progress that aims at creating and evaluating a prototype system capable of improving intercommunication and the overall success of the societal challenges of the school learning system.

Abstract
This article proposes a robotic system that aims to support the elderly, to comply with the medication regimen to which they are subject. The robot uses its locomotion system to move to the elderly and through computer vision detects the packaging of the medicine and identifies the person who should take it at the correct time. For the accomplishment of the task, an application was developed supported by a database with information about the elderly, the medicines that they have prescribed and the respective timetable of taking. The experimental work was done with the robot NAO, using development tools like MySQL, Python, and OpenCV. The elderly facial identification and the detection of medicine packing are performed through computer vision algorithms that process the images acquired by the robot's camera. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of object recognition, facial detection, and facial recognition algorithms, using public databases. The tests made it possible to obtain qualitative metrics about the algorithms' performance. A proof of concept experiment was conducted in a simple scenario that recreates the environment of a dwelling with seniors who are assisted by the robot in the taking of medicines.

Abstract
External defibrillators are recognized effective to revert ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. This paper presents a new settable defibrillator, designed to assess the effectiveness of the following defibrillation waveforms during clinical trials: monophasic damped sinusoidal (MDS); biphasic truncated exponential (BTE) and rectilinear biphasic waveform (RBW). The device flexibility allows the setting of the defibrillation waveforms most relevant parameters, namely energy and pulses duration. The device usage is also relevant in biomedical engineer and medical staff education and training programs.

Abstract
In previous works, an educational platform based on Matlab/Simulink/Lego EV3 has been developed that allows interacting in real time with the robot. However, this platform is limited to the capacity of Simulink to adapt to different robotic devices, limiting its use to LEGO and Arduino or Rasberry Pi robots. In this paper we present a generalization of this platform to any type of robot, based on Matlab/ROS/Robot. Robot Operating System (ROS) is a robotic middleware, that is, a collection of frameworks for software development of robots [4]. Despite not being an operating system, ROS provides standard services such as hardware abstraction, control of low-level devices, etc. MATLAB (R) support for ROS is a library of functions that allows you to exchange data with ROS-enabled physical robots. Matlab/ROS/Robot interaction is tested in a generic robot with Arduino Mega and Raspberry Pi 3, demonstrating the viability of the presented educational robotic platform.